Ruminations of an Expatriate

The police here, who are far fewer than in Xalapa it seems, carry only a “night stick” and handcuffs. None that I have seen carry a sidearm or rifle. All of the many police persons in Xalapa carry side arms, many carry rifles or shotguns and some carry six foot long metal truncheons, though I hasten to add that the police in Xalapa are not the least bit menacing.

There are very few buildings here of more than two stories, and few of even two stories. I was told by Jose, of the Casa de Mezcal (of which I will tell you), that Oaxaca is located in a seismic zone, thus the low rise nature of the buildings. Xalapa does not reside in a seismic zone, thus there are many multi-story buildings, particularly in Centro.

The streets and sidewalks in Centro Oaxaca are wider than their counterparts in Xalapa, thus, coupled with the fact of lower buildings, it is lighter and more airy at street level.

Damn there are a lot of churches here. It seems that every couple of blocks one encounters an opulent cathedral.

While I recommend that anyone visiting Oaxaca visit the Zocolo, and park oneself in a chair at one of the restaurants to experience the comings and goings and to make appropriate donations to vendors, I recommend a walk along Calle Las Casas for a tour of the local shopping district. Calles Independencia, Hidalgo, and Guerrero are the streets heavily traveled by tourists, but the other areas of town are quite loevely.

There are many folks in the Oaxaca area, so I’m told, who primarily speak Mixe, an indigenous Aztecan language, of which there are two dialects in the area. The woman making tortillas in the Restaurant Centro, where I had both breakfast and lunch today, told me that she doesn’t speak Spanish well, but speaks Mixe. Likewise, Marcos and Christopher, whom I met in the Case de Mezcal, told me that perhaps twenty percent of those in their home pueblo, near to here and where I will go tomorrow, don’t speak Spanish.

There is a beautiful building fronting on the Zocolo of which I asked Adan, the waiter at the restaurant on the Zocolo where I had a couple of beers yesterday, if it was a government building. He told me that is used to be the state government building; but the state government offices have since been dispersed to different buildings around town, as the Zocolo building had been the site of so many disruptive, often violent, demonstrations.

There is a Jardin de Entobotanico here, to which I walked this morning. Tough I was able to look through a couple of windows in the surrounding walls, it is closed on Sundays so I was not able to visit. Given that I will leave tomorrow at noon, a visit to the Jardin will have to wait. The pictures you see here are of the entrances to the jardin.

I enjoy nothing more than being on the road, encumbered with few plans, learning of new places and people, who are generally eager to answer my many questions, which I generally precede with a “disculpa, una pregunta por favor.” My entreaties are almost always answered with a “no te preocupea” and an answer is gladly proferred.

Also, traveling with no plans enables me to take advantage of such serendipitous opportunities of which I will next report to you.